Sunday, August 28, 2016

The only way that man could be
their father is if he had lied to Amanda and had really been an orphan since
birth. Knowing now all the lies that he
had told, there was no doubt that Sam/Nicholas Patterson was the baby that had
been born on Jul 1, 1947. The rest of his story that Lillian Patterson had been
his mother was completely made up. It
was quite difficult to track a boy in the system when they really had no idea
what name he used then. The reality of all of this is that no one really knew
who the man they called dad really was.

By the time March arrived the
entire crew was ready for a change. The end of their contract was in May and
many really wanted to go back to civilization. Others however, like Lyle and
Stuart had no one to return to and loved the ship life.

Matt and Bruce took off on March 1,
2001 to find Nicole and see if they could get any information from her. They
had packed enough supplies for two weeks and knew that this was their last
chance. Knowing what the coordinates of the island made the trip much
shorter. As soon as they were on the
island, Bruce knew something was wrong. All of the markers had had set up were
gone. His humble hut had been removed and nothing looked familiar.

“Are you sure we’re in the right
place?” He asked Matt.

“These are the coordinates we wrote
down when we left, so it has to be the right spot.”

“But nothing looks the same.”

The two men began to walk toward
the location they had known was the village. The path had been destroyed and
was completely covered with discards from the trees above. There were large
boulders in the way as well as dead animals. “I didn’t even know that animals
lived on this island,” Bruce commented.

As they reached the peak where they
could look into the village they were stunned. What once was a thriving
community was now destroyed and abandoned. “What could have done this?” Bruce
asked Matt.

“I’m not sure,” he responded, “But
whatever it was it used deadly force.”

“Could it have been a storm?”

“Not sure,” Matt answered, “It
seems like this would have had to have been a hurricane, not just a regular storm.
The fact that it is this far inland means it would have been a catastrophic hurricane.
We’ll have to wait until we get back to look up weather patterns.”

“I think we should go down and
explore,” Bruce suggested. “Maybe there’re clues down there that will give us
more understanding.”

As the men gingerly approached the
village, they had both been expecting something or someone to dart out at them.
Nothing happened. They approached the
first building and found that all of the walls had been damaged, some more severely
than others. What once appeared to be a building with several rooms looked like
a series of misaligned walls and brick debris.
The continued walking through and discovered more buildings in the same
disarray. What was not seen was any sign of life, or death.

Going from building to building
extracted the same results: destruction of the buildings and no sign of life.

“Do you think they all escaped?”
Bruce asked. “Or did whatever happen here take all the lives elsewhere?

“Not sure,” Matt answered. “But
whatever it was, it was cataclysmic. We
can either continue to explore the island or ask for an early pickup.”

Bruce dejectedly replied, “I don’t
see any point in exploring further. The truth is my mother is either dead of
somewhere on this island. If she is here it would take more time than we have
to find her.”

Matt radioed the chopper and asked
for a pick up. The men had only been on the island for three days.

Upon arrival Matt and Bruce both
headed down to the charts room and asked Lyle and Stuart to find out anything
they could about weather activity within the coordinates of the island. What
was revealed was devastating. There had been a hurricane in the area, but the
eye of the hurricane was right over the tiny island. There would have been no
way for any survival as the winds were in excess of 150 km per hour. As Lyle
said, “Anything and everything in that area would have been lifted off the
ground, swirled around and spit out hundreds of kilometers away. I would be
amazed if any tree survived that kind of attack!”

Bruce had to resign himself to the
fact that his mother was lost from him forever.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Both men realized that they had run
out of time. Their supplies were almost gone and their pick up point was a
day’s hike away. Matt had taken note of
the coordinates for that point on the island and they determined that the next
time they came they would drop down closer to that point and have more time to
approach Nicole.

Returning to the ship, Matt set
about getting a map charted and placed the island itself on the bigger maps as
a new uncharted island that had just been discovered.

Bruce’s task was more
difficult. He had to convince his sister
that going back to the island was imperative to finding out t more about their
father, when in fact he had no idea if that would even work.

Monica was sympathetic, yet wary of
the plan. Although here original intent
was to locate her father, the expedition had been funded to do something
completely different. She would have to justify the cost of the helicopter and
the time involved to send the men back.

After two weeks of deliberations,
Monica gave the okay. Matt and Bruce were all set to leave the ship for the
island the next morning. But a sudden storm approached and they cold not fly. September was the beginning of hurricane
season and the reality was that they might not have safe passage for another
six months. Bruce did not want to take
the chance to be stranded again and he agreed to wait until March. By then it
would have been more than a year since he actually talked to his mom.

While waiting out the hurricane
season the team set about the task they had been commissioned to do. They
slowly made their way further down the Amazon river, encountering all the
jungle had to offer. Bruce saw piranhas destroy a full length boa constrictor.
He saw a boa constrictor squeeze the life out of a monkey. He saw a black
caiman destroy an entire school of piranhas, he saw a giant otter and was
scared to death when he saw the huge anaconda swimming next to the ship.

Nothing in Bruce’s past had
prepared him for his present state. He no longer had a plan for his future. He
was completely unsure about his here and now. He spent a lot of time, as it was
available, speaking with Monica and Steve. He wanted to know more about the man
they all called dad. Strikingly familiar were the stories of his being gone for
long lengths of time. It became so normal that none of the kids thought life
should be any other way. Also consistent
with all the stories was their mother’s undying love for their father and her
defense of him at any cost.

Amanda Patterson did not seem to be
the same personality type as Nicole Patterson. Where Amanda was independent,
Nicole was dependent. Where Amanda was self-sufficient, Nicole relied on others
for everything. How could a man love such diverse women at the same time? The only place to find that answer was to
learn more about the man they all called Dad.

Amanda found out that Sam Patterson
had been orphaned by the age of ten and never really knew his father. Nicole
only knew that Nick Patterson had no family. Monica, Steve and Bruce could not
believe there was not more information about their father available somewhere.
The World Wide Web had become very popular and with the satellite on the ship
they should be able to access the internet.

All three agreed that his birthday
was somewhere in 1947. Amanda heard that he was born to an unwed mother. In
1947 that was a crime and there were only specific places where he could have
been born, if he had born somewhere other than a dirty alley. That was a dead
end.

Was there any way they could come
up with his social security number and perhaps they could track him that
way? Monica was not sure if social
security numbers were required for high school back then, but she figured that
was good place to start. She contacted the school that her mother and father
attended together and introduced herself as his daughter and wondered if they
could provide any background information on him. It took almost three week for
a response to come back and all the school could provide was his birth date was
June 1, 1947. His mother’s name was Lillian Patterson and his father was
unknown. They provided an address that was on his record.

The three grown children were
elated. That gave them somewhere to start looking. They looked up Lillian Patterson;
they looked up Sam Patterson DOB. June 1, 1947, and they looked up Patterson in
Nebraska in and around 1947. The only information they received was from a
hospital in Azusa, Nebraska. It stated that an unknown woman had come into the
emergency room and given birth to a baby boy. When it was time for them to be
released, the woman was gone and the boy was turned over to the state. Could this
be their dad?

Sunday, August 7, 2016

I am sitting here in front of a blank screen and now realize that the idea of setting myself up to post a chapter a week and a journal entry a week is just setting myself up for failure.

I have been writing the rest of Bruce's story in my head and I now know where it is going and how it is ending, but when I sit down to type it the words just aren't coming. I am sure the book will be completed by the end of the year and I will post as it is being written.

My journal was a place for me to explain - for later reading - what I am doing, feeling, etc....but it turns out that I am not so willing to share that with whomever decides to open this blog.

I am seriously thinking about just creating a journal blog that is locked from outsiders. That way I know my word will be kept safe.